number one story on msnbc.com is a weird one. armed rooster kills california man. apparently there was a cock fight and the rooster had a blade attached to its leg and killed with the blade one of the guys the fight. bizarre story. don't go to cock fights. we have time for one quick e-mail. >> wow. how do i follow that? jody writes today is my dog's third birthday. >> oh! >> we watch the show every morning before i go to work. >> happy birthday, rocky. there he is. >> happy birthday! >> 3 years old. that's 21 in dog years. happy drinking, rocky. "morning joe" starts right now. ♪ you gave a great speech in arizona on the civility factor. >> i appreciate it. >> but i don't think that people

have -- are going to respond to it. i think the civility in the media and in politics is going to go downhill. how much damage do you believe the media is doing by participating in this? and people have accused me of that. >> i don't think it helps. >> how much damage is it doing to the country? >> i think what it does is over the long-term, it is making it harder and harder for the sensible center to get together to solve problems. i think a lot of politicians think the way i get on the news is if i insult somebody. and -- and not rewarding politicians for simply insulting the other side, but rather awarding them for coming up with sensible solution. >> that's a pipe dream. that's not going to happen. >> you can start the trend, bill. >> yeah, i could start the trend. i don't think i'm a personal attack guy. i call it the way i think it should be called. dollthere you go. good morning. it's tuesday, january 8th.

>> that was interesting. >> welcome to "morning joe." >> we've got andy with us. >> yes, we have andy with us. >> and i see john. >> we have john heilman. very good to have you guys on board. >> it's very good to see you all. >> i'm going to start insulting people on the set here. because that's how you get on tv these days. not you, mika. i'm going to start with andy. >> actually -- >> why stop? you've been doing it all morning in the green room. been going on for hours. >> do we have pat? >> we have pat buchanan. >> oh! >> it gets no better than that. >> pat buchanan joining us. >> thank you, pat. mika, that was a very interesting clip. the president knows the trend has already been started. >> i was watching o'reilly last night, as i always do, and -- >> yeah. will sxaeie and i do, too. >> i actually was watching last night. i'm not kidding. hey, it's a good show. >> the stars lined up, huh? >> i check in once in a while.

>> you might have caught him correcting me. >> what did he say? >> well, he had a point. >> about what? >> he made a comment about a comment i made yesterday about the question he second the president. i just happened to -- you can see it for yourself. >> let's do it. >> what do you make, joe, of the question, why do people hate you so much? i just wonder if that would have ever been second about george w. bush. >> oh, i wonder. i wonder, would anyone have dared to ask president bush that kind of question? >> the people in the press hated you, a lot of them. >> yeah. >> why? why? >> i don't know. you have to ask them. i -- i'm not a hater. and so sometimes it's hard for me to understand why somebody hates somebody. >> apparently people at msnbc missed that. >> yeah. >> that's not quite the same thing. >> no. >> people versus people in the press. >> having said that, though, he brought up the "h" word. >> yes, he did. he absolutely did. i stand very corrected.

>> that was a reasonable repost on his part. >> when you're wrong, you're wrong. >> if you had that tape at your disposal, you would have used it to shut up your detractors, right? >> i actually didn't know. >> they're not haters either, by the way. >> i want more o'reilly. give me more o'reilly. >> the interview was very interesting. >> give me more o'reilly. let's go. >> silence. >> here's the deal. chris turns to me -- put chris on the screen. he says, hey, you want more o'reilly? i said, yeah. he goes, i don't have it yet. he's turning into t.j. the t.j. virus is spreading. >> hey, it's ready if you want to go to it. >> let's roll the clip. it's line warner wolf. >> i know. >> go! >> i think he still has an in the skin. look, unlike president bush who i asked the same question to a few weeks ago who really sincerely didn't care about what anybody thought of them, i think president obama does. >> interesting.

>> okay. >> i think he does. >> or he laughed. i don't know. this is going nowhere fast. so egypt. egypt, huh? really? what about that egypt thing? >> i didn't think obama was thin-skinned in that answer actually. >> can don't think so either. had a nice smile on his face. >> i think he responded very well to it. >> so egypt. >> this is the most rudderless conversation we've had. >> i know. >> chris, we're not going there. we're going to get -- shut up. >> and the packers, too. >> what else? >> the packers. egypt. >> hey, how about that hockey team. >> all right. i'm going to take control of this situation. >> let's talk about -- >> oh, no, please. >> we're not talking about liverpool. >> pat buchanan, let's -- let's have an intelligent conversation here. >> that's better. >> we have run the boat aground. pat is going to get us off the sand bar. so, pat, i -- i thought that the president did very well in the o'reilly interview. i thought when he was asked if he was hated, he smiled.

he showed some of that confidence that he exhibited in 2008, sort of that easy-going confidence. i thought it was a big win for him. >> i think it was a very big win. he came off as very pleasant. he wasn't mussed up by the questions. the very fact that he did it speaks well of him. bill o'reilly has a great reputation as a tough questioner. he's over there on fox. the president goes into the lion's den and comes out chuckling. in a friendly interview. i thought was all pluses. >> it is a -- pat, i thought that was a great model for politicians. you know most politicians are scared to answer tough questions. i think the president -- that is exhibit one of how you disarm your detractors. you go, you talk to them. >> sure. >> you smile, you disagree. >> i don't understand why that's so hard, though, joe. >> i mean, you deflect and make a joke. >> the problem is -- >> the good politicians always were able to do that, right? how hard is that?

>> andy, there are a lot of politicians that are incapable of doing that. >> people get defensive. >> they do. >> right? and they freak out. >> no doubt about. hey, pat, i -- i want to go really quickly to egypt. then we'll bring it up here. what is happening is what a lot of us said late last week was going to happen. that is mubarak wasn't going to get pushed out. he's going to leave under his own time frame. it's going to be before september, but nobody is -- nobody is pushing him to the exit. what challenges does that present the united states in its foreign policy? and specifically the president? >> i think the president and secretary of state clinton have now moved away from being way out in front for the demonstrators and their demands, joe, to the point where they realize that the new reality is the state and the army have prevailed. the demonstrators have gotten major concessions. mubarak is going in september certainly. his son is not going to run for president. they got other concessions, i

think. but i think the state and the army have really done well in outlasting the demonstrators and wearing them down. and i think it's diminishing returns for what's going on in tahrir square. my guess is that suleman is the odds-on favorite to be running this country. and i think that's a victory for the regime. >> and john heilman, what a -- in retrospect, what a brilliant move by the army who did not wear down the protesters with gunfire or batons. but by simply saying, eh, we're not going to fire on you. do what you want to do. and they realized that, i guess, after a week or two of this with shops closed down, people were going to go back home. >> yep. >> and they were going to go back to their jobs and wait for change to come. >> but i -- i think all that is true. i think that you have to emphasize what pat said. if you think about two weeks ago, the following things would have been inconceivable, that mubarak would have agreed not to run for reelection, that he

would have ruled out his son, that they would have engaged -- those are huge changes in the course of two weeks. the question becomes mubarak's departure is a foregone conclusion. so what happens now structural to the egyptian political system? what kinds of reforms happen between now and september? does the constitution get scrapped? does it get rewritten? does the parliamentary system get reformatted? are the freedoms of the press granted? are the police powers of the government stripped away? that's what will make a difference in terms of what political system emerges, regardless of who is in charge of it. that's what the protesters and pro-democracy people should be focused on. >> you write about it in your new article for "new york" magazine. the politics practiced by this president, he is mercury. he is always movable. you know, last week he was with the protesters. then over the weekend he backed off. it's -- it's a pragmatism.

i guess you could call it pragmatism or you call it fecklessness or do you call it realism? >> i think you call it -- i take away that -- i take the fecklessinofeckles fecklessefeckles fecklessness out of it and say pragmatism. there's a reason why people have been comment lplimentary about president. many people criticize the tradition, but he's acting in the tradition of cold-eyed foreign policy, real politics. it goes back to the first george herbert walker bush administration. pretty more the core of american foreign policy and the way that we have practiced it since the cold war ended. there are idealists who don't like that, but that's where the president is. >> idealists on the left and idealists, andy, on the right. but this is how we do business. it's how we did business with the philippines. reagan told him to get out. >> right.

i think that we had a lot of stake in egypt. by kind of holding his fire and seeing how things played out, the president played his hand right. i was really surprised that the muslim brotherhood didn't have a stronger hand to play itself in egypt. they have faded. and also looking at the various influences in the region, i mean, the egyptians say we're a sea of calm surrounded by radicalism. and looking at the other countries, you know, in the area, in the region, they -- they also were sort of standing there. there's so much at stake there. in the end, the status quo serves the region and the united states best. that's how things seem to be playing out at this point. >> let's quickly hear from robert gibbs who said a reform process is clearly under way. take a look. >> we have a vice president for the first time in almost three decades of president mubarak's leadership in egypt.

he tasked vice president suleman with the process of working through these changes. i think it was clear when the president said yesterday that egypt -- egypt has let the world know they're not going back. and our policy is -- is obviously to move egypt forward. >> all right. that was robert gibbs on that. he also said the participation of the muslim brotherhood, whichever one, you know, characterizes in one way only, in the new government is not the place of -- of us to choose leaders for other countries. they're going to have to work that out to an extent. we have a great story here domestically. >> yeah. what's that? >> about chris christie. have you heard? >> oh, my gosh. >> have you heard about that? >> have you heard about that, willie? >> it's too good. >> we hang out in jersey a lot. >> we do. >> willie actually does. you're making that joke, but

it's true. >> read this story. it's fascinating now chris christie called everybody's bluff. and saved new jersey $13 billion. >> that's one way of putting it. two democratic senators from new jersey announced another proposal to build two tunnels under the hudson river with amtrak as an alternative. >> hold on, ohold on. they said before that that wouldn't happen for 20 years. >> no way, huh-uh. >> so you're saying a month later it happened? >> well, it's apparently an alternative to the plan that governor chris christie killed last year. remember when everyone was really mad at him? >> but it's over. it's dead. >> very bad. senator robert menendez said that more federal funding would help to cover the cost overruns, a concern that christie brought up last october. >> how much is this project going to cost overall? how much is it going to cost new jersey? >> i don't want to rehash the battles of the past because this is about looking toward the

future. but the reality is that this project, the tunnel was on time, on budget, when it was canceled. and it was canceled supposedly over the specter of the potential for cost overruns, which the secretary of transportation offered alternatives to mitigate to. >> let's not revisit the past. >> of course not. chris christie said amtrak can build this. >> right. >> and they said, no, that will never happen. and now it's happening. >> senator frank lautenburg made adjustments to address concerns -- >> do we have "the star ledger"? do we have chris -- let's read "the star ledger" editorial about -- when they said this would never happen. >> here y ha, i have it here. here it is. >> this is fascinating. >> okay. what's plan "b"? yesterday, the governor suggested that amtrak might build a tunnel instead and that new jersey could contribute. that's complete hokum.

amtrak hopes to build another tunnel, but it plans are tentative. it has no funding. it has done no design work or environmental studies. it is at the stage that the a.r.c. tunnel was about 20 years ago. >> so this won't happen. it's impossible. oh, wait, it happened. >> right. >> i got to go to you and say i actually -- i got my start in politics in a tax revolt in 1993, pensacola. they wanted to raise property taxes 65%. and i got a group of people together and we -- we killed it. and they were going, oh, this will never happen. we don't have the money. we're going to have to close down playgrounds. 1,000 cops. i mean, they went on and on. and we got them finally to overturn it. and then the city manager came forth and said, wait a second, oh, wait, we do have the money for it. here chris christie said, no, i'm not paying $13 billion for a tunnel right now when we're in -- in economic crisis.

they said, oh, well, if we don't do this, it will never be built. you just saw, they said it was pure hokum. a couple of months later, it's being built. chris christie is showing other politicians that you can walk away from the table and say, we're not going to do it. we're not going to waste. as a negotiating tactic, which we -- we said we believed it was months ago. and good things can come of it. he saved his state $13 billion. >> chris christie called their bluff, joe. the reason he won was because he was willing to walk away, walk away and have no tunnel. if it meant a risk to his state. and he's going to get his tunnel and he's going to save his money. that's what tough leadership can do. >> everybody in new jersey,

every politician, he just sort of stood there and smiled and went, okay. i don't care. >> chris christie is a guy who cares about what he made a commitment to do, and he's going to do it. let's bring up the 100th anniversary. reagan said, look, pat, if it doesn't work, i can go back to the ranch and chop wood. but i'm going to do what i came here to do. >> by the way, heilman's laughing here. i have to make a disclaimer. this paid political adverti advertisement paid by pat and joe. >> this is -- every time i'm out here, it's like we've got the chris christie block for two minutes. >> it's so rare. >> let me ask you this, name the last guy that just said, no, we're not going to do this big public works project and walked away from it. >> i'm just -- i'm jesting. >> i want you to contribute and tell me what -- what we just said that was wrong. i understand -- >> everything you said was right. >> oh, lord. >> i understand it's -- >> okay.

>> hold on. let's do this another way. >> no. >> i'm dead serious. other than andrew cuomo, name a politician in a blue state that has dared to do this. >> i'm trying. >> no, this is a serious point. >> used -- walked away from a negotiation as a tactic and then come back? >> that was willing to say no to a very popular, multibillion-dollar deal. i'm asking you to call me out here. >> i'm not going to -- >> he wants you to say you're right again. you're right, you're right, you're right, you're right. >> hold on a second. we're accused of -- >> what do you expect his answer to sfwhee. >> we're accused of trying to suck up to chris christie all the time. people are going to say the same thing about andrew cuomo. i'm asking you to call me out. did chris christie just save the people of new jersey $13 billion? >> i believe -- i'm worried that mika is going to throw something

that me. i believe the answer is "b." >> so we heard one senator saying -- oh, my god. >> i'm with johnny. >> saying that he doesn't want to -- you need to be quiet now. can you be quiet now? you need to shut your mouth. just end it. it's done. you're done talking. you are right. be quiet. okay. so governor chris christie said that he was quite happy because he decided to revisit the past. very happy, stood his ground. take a listen. >> i said at the time we should look to partner with amtrak to do it. i was told by senator lautenburg, oh, that's impossible. that will take 30 years for that to happen. i hope all of you are taking note of all the dire predictions that were made and how wrong i was to have canceled this. sometimes to make real change happen, you have to stand up and be counted. and make the tough decisions. and if i had been intimidated by

all of the rhetoric from all the folks who were shooting at us at the time, the taxpayers of the state of new jersey would be on the hook for untold billions of dollars. >> can i talk? >> yes. >> willie, i really do think andrew cuomo is just writing these notes down. andrew cuomo is going to take it to albany. the legislators in albany, one word. duck. >> and jerry brown. >> and jerry brown in california. >> he's doing it. whether you like christie or not, if you don't like his politics or what he's doing, you have to admire political courage when you see it. >> oh, yeah. >> don't agree with the decision, but at least he's doing what he said he was going to do. >> what i love is that political courage is being rewarded in new jersey for a republican. people think that i'm doing this because i'm a republican. no. i'm -- andrew cuomo is going to win big.

he's going to knock albany's block off, going after that bureaucracy and gutting them. jerry brown in california, i like that he's going after them in california. >> can i have my chapstick back? thank you. coming up this morning, democratic -- >> yes, i'm sorry. >> steny hoyer will be here. we'll talk to rand paul. and bill krystal is going to be here. also, politico's top stories out of washington. vandenheuvel

good morning, everyone. we are looking at wet snow through new england. so be careful this morning. we have school delays up there through connecticut and massachusetts. a little rain going through new york city. that will be over with shortly. be prepared this afternoon. it will be wind sxae dry. the temperatures are really going to drop. it's warmer this morning, colder this afternoon. we have a major snowstorm heading from kansas to oklahoma to arkansas. that's where all the travel trouble will be over the next couple of days. dallas will see more snow. ♪

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like people. chicks, chicks, guy hit in nuts. >> pretty funny. all right, 26 past the hour. >> that was the credible. >> that tells you all you need to know. >> i've got my hands full this morning. can we show the doritos commercial again? will you do it again? joe didn't see it. >> that was awesome. a tea party event, rick scott unveiled his first budget proposal by slashing $5 billion in spending that includes cuts to education and medicaid and a plan to eliminate 7,000 state government jobs. and a bid to deny citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants faltered yesterday when proponents couldn't get the votes of the senate panel. bloggers are up in arms as aol swallows up huffington post. huff po readers have responded with mostly negative comments about website being taken over. intere interesting.

i think they'll be okay. >> i know that arianna is just weeping. >> yeah. >> wow. >> i'm just saying. hold on. >> we were e-mailing last night. let's just say she's in a very good mood. >> love it. >> look at her. the "new york times," representative jane harmon, a california democrat who won reelection in november, made a surprise announcement that she's planning to resign from congress. jane is a member of the blue dog coalition. she wants to join a washington think tank. her seat will be filled in a special election. harmon will be on "andrea mitchell reports" today at 1:00 p.m. eastern on msnbc. i served with jane and wish her very well. and she is a good example of somebody who keeps calm and carries on. >> that's nice. >> she does. she was very nice to newt gingrich at a time when everybody else was hateful. and i remember newt said his farewell address. i wasn't exactly best friends with newt, but i noticed that she was the only one on the democratic side to stand up and

give him a standing ovation, despite the fact that she didn't care for his politics, but she wanted to thank him for his service to america. >> all right. we wish her the best. time now for politico, willie. >> let's check in with jim, who is still drunk from the packers' big win on sunday. hey, jim. >> hi, how are you doing? >> congratulations, man. >> thank you, sir. it was a great day. >> yes. we've got a good idea, at least a loose idea, who the republican presidential candidates will be. but you're already digging into vp possibilitpossibilities. who are you looking at? >> there's a lot of excitement around the number-two possibilities. there's a been there, done that compone tonight t componeant to the people running. there's a lot of excitement about governor mcdonnell in virginia getting maybe some women or some minorities. marco rubio, who is a senator,

or rob portman. a lot of these are fresh faces. they're new and have like a new set of ideas. definitely a lot more chatter among republicans. why is the potm of the ticket seeming to be more electrifying than the top of the ticket right now? >> you want to talk about somebody that has it all if you look at demographics, the governor of new mexico, female, hispanic, and then one of the most volatile swing states there are. are we just going to keep -- we'll just look at each other here. >> what about democrats? >> you know, in the -- the important thing is that i think that some of these names will get to the top of that list. when you talk to republican donors, republican activists, they're not happy with the top of the ticket, names that are being bandied about right now. look for someone like the governor from new mexico or marco rubio to be the next big push from the establishment. i think that push will come from the establishment, not just from activists. >> jim, thank you very much.

>> take care. >> what's going on today? >> i don't know. we're a little loose. >> we need to tighten up here. >> let's tighten this up. >> tighten up, y'all. >> we need to tighten up, y'all. come on, man. >> we need mika to tighten us up. >> and on, mika. >> we're going to right the ship. you're going to run this thing. go. coming up, mark zuckerberg has a friend problem on facebook. this is such good timing with your op-ed. and drew brees hints at the job he'd like to have after football. the question is would you vote for him? sports is next. [ wind howling ]

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helping repair the look of past damage and prevent future damage. positively ageless. only from aveeno. a nice shot of capitol hill. 34 past the hour. welcome back to "morning joe." quick look at the news. facebook founder mark zuckerberg has obtained a restraining order against an alleged stalker. a 30-year-old has been using threatening language against his girlfriend and his sister. the man tried to reach zuckerberg at several facebook offices, seeking money for his family. pending a hearing later this month, the man must now stay 300 yards away from zuckerberg. >> he needed money. >> coming up, i'm going to read part of your piece in politico today, which is so good. >> thank you.

>> and related to the story. >> her reviews of your pieces are really strong. >> they're very strong. >> very positive. >> it's like every one. >> no, it's great. >> i don't like every one. i just talk about ones i like. >> it's like the ed mcmahon equivalent of political tv. >> oh, man. >> she laughs at my jokes. >> i'm with you, mika. >> just smack him. just smack him. >> i'm not going to lie, it's a good one. it's a humdinger. toddlers fed a diet of junk food can suffer lasting damage to their brain power. >> uh-oh. >> according to british researchers, children who eat more fries, chips and pizza before the age of 3 -- >> they're calling that junk food now? >> yes. >> they keep moving the line. >> listen to this. this is incredible. they have a lower i.q. than their healthier counterparts. this is so important. it's not funny. >> i know. that's why i'm texting susan right now to tell her. >> is captain crunch junk? >> susan feeds jack very nicely.

>> it's got vegetables. there's fruit in it. the crunch berries. >> let's just go to sports. we really do need to take a look at that. >> losing 20 i.q. points and -- or giving up pizza. you know, that's -- i say -- you know, who needs the extra 20 i.q. points? >> i mean, i made -- i made that choice a long time ago. >> a lot of people don't understand that soda and the types of foods they're feeding their children are thwarting their growth and ruining their future. >> thwarting their growth. i'm 6'4'', okay willie, let's do some sports. for the second year in a row, the super bowl was the most-watched television program in the history of the united states of america. sunday's game between the packers and steelers, 111 million viewers. >> wow. >> that's a 4% leap from last year when the colts and saints

unseated the 1983 season finale of "mash" for the final spot. >> small markets, too, right? >> right. exactly. >> never saw that coming. pat, did you see the game? >> sure did. i thought it was a pretty good game. >> clash of the classics. >> i think aaron rodgers played a better game even than the stats showed. those guys were dropping balls all over the field on him. >> yeah. big star of the game was the mvp, aaron rodgers. he's been very busy. yesterday morning he flew to orlando for the 25th annual i'm going to disney world event. that's got to be irritating. they just want to sleep in and they have to go to orlando. he waves to people and sits with mickey. from there he flew up to new york city where he made an appearance on "david letterman." letterman asked rodgers about stepping out of the long shadow of brett favre. >> i can remember brett favre sitting right here and i said,

so i understand you've retired. it was everywhere. he says, well, maybe. and it turned out he had not retired. now, was this for you, did this become a distraction? >> i don't think it was a distraction. i think i was a guy that took all the reps in the offseason and he took all of the reps during the season. that's how it worked out. >> so there's a certain justice in this, isn't there? >> you know what -- >> i think so. >> he's a classy guy. he waited a long time. he went through a lot with favre. he waited his turn, didn't say anything. now he's the mvp. last year's winner, drew brees, was second in an interview with reuters if he'd consider a career in politics. he said definitely. politics fascinates me. when you look at the issues and the current economic times, you hate to see both parties going at each other like they do. you feel at times, man, this is counterproductive. let's just stick to the issues.

i'd consider it. i'm not going to close any doors. smart guy. >> the saints party? >> third party? >> where is he -- where is he from originally? >> indiana. >> he played at purdue. i'd have to look it up. he might be from indiana. >> that would be fascinating. >> what's coming up? the known unknowns. four years after leaving office, former secretary of defense donald rumsfeld with a new memoir that's out today. he's talking openly about his legacy, mistakes and who's to blame for failures in iraq. mostly not him. >> it's not him. that's what he says. >> it ain't me, babe. ♪ sun in the sky ♪ you know how i feel i feel like jennifer hudson but with new arms, new legs, and this smile.

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i could be wrong. i'm going out on a limb here. i don't think bill o'reilly really likes the president. that's the impression i got. you decide for yourself. >> mr. president, thank you very much for doing this. i must thank you on behalf of the fox news channel. >> it's always a pleasure. >> nice to see you. >> thank you so much. >> i hate you. now, who's going to win the game? come on. come on. >> bill, here's the thing. the folks who hate you, they don't know you. >> you don't care who wins? >> yeah, i want a great game. >> so you don't care? >> green bay is probably faster. >> muslim. enjoy the game. >> oh, my gosh. that was funny. >> that's tough. >> that was funny. it was a very good interview. time now for our -- >> don't you think he was tough on him there? you never heard him say that to george w. bush. >> i'm never going to live that down. i was wrong. okay. this is a part of your -- i'm

going to embarrass you again. this is your piece in politico. i like it. it matches the facebook story today on mark zuckerberg. >> okay. >> before we go to the full screen, chris, okay -- joe writes about the dangers of facebook. facebook is feeding the narcissistic appetites of a self-consumed culture that is populated by teenage vulgarians, desperate housewives and bored men. do you guys spend a lot of time on facebook? >> trying to figure out which one i am. >> there you go. this facebook world leaves millions distracted at work, distracted at home, distracted at play and distracted around their families, even when sitting down for dinner. and he goes on to talk about -- you should go online and look at it -- the dangers of that disconnect in people's lives and how it leads to dangerous things happening. >> petter travers wrote a great review, which i quote in here, john heilman, of how facebook casts a pretty ugly mirror up to

this generation where there's just -- there is a disconnect. a disconnect of the type that we saw in rutgers where the students had no problem, you know, filming the young man in the intimate encounter and blasting it all over. you don't have kids though, do you? this doesn't worry you, does it? >> you know, this kind of commentary sounds to me like parents in the early 1960s complaining about the beatles. that rock and roll. >> i have kids. >> it will turn these kids into a bunch of long-haired -- >> i've got four kids. >> i've had nothing but trouble with facebook and my kids. >> my kids are all on facebook all the time. i'm on facebook. it's a distraction, but how is it any different from tv? >> because it's interactive. >> that's true. >> if you think about this, there are others that worry about this as well. there's such a disconnect as kids interact socially. they're not developed emotionally to understand that

what they say online and chats and on facebook is permanent. and has incredible impact. they are protected from it. >> kids understand that more and more. you say one bad thing and then everyone sees it and that's it. you learn that lesson pretty quickly. >> it's a fact of life. i have a 3-year-old daughter who takes the ipad, turns it on, does the swipe and goes through to whatever -- she has learning games she plays. it's incredible. they are going to be linked to that technology. what do we do about that? you can't go back on it. how do we make it right? >> by the way, this is what travers said. the movie illustrates how technology is winning the battle against actual human contact, creating a nation of narcissists, shaping their own reality like a facebook page. if youth can't see itself in this movie, it's not paying attention. you know what, i would guess that pat buchanan, some of the parents in 1960s that were concerned about the sexual

revolution and the drug revolution and every other cultural upheaval may have had a point and were not as square as long-haired hippies like john heilman, the john heilmans of that time. >> and with joe scarboroughs of that time. >> joe, i think you had kids watching tv seven hours a day in the '50s. in the '90s, we had video games. but this is different with them talking to each other back and forth and all of these teens. it was facebook and twitter that brought that demonstraonstratid there in tahrir square in egypt. so it's got potentials for politics as well as what you write about. >> yeah. >> joe, i just want to -- i find it strange that someone like you, who enjoys twitter, the tweets and is engaged in that activity and finds it at least a little bit amusing, how can someone who is an avid tweeter

be anti-facebook? >> when you see me tweet, you don't see my saying, i'm now at the supermarket and buying asparagus. i am now in the bathroom and doing this. >> that's very disappointing for all of us. >> seriously. the intimacy -- >> i can tell you that my wife has someone she follows on facebook who describes explicit details of her personal life, that people say the most remarkably intimate things about problems they're having in marriages, sharing it with 300, quote, friends who are not friends at all. >> people do that on twitter, too. >> yeah. if they do, that's a problem. as you know, i basically send links, talk about soccer and tell people to keep calm. >> that's a problem with the person, not the technology. >> it's a problem with the culture. that's the new norm. again, i've got kids who are 23, a son that's 23, a son that's 19 and two younger kids. and i can tell you i have seen

their friends, i have seen their acquaintances, and i can tell you the things that they do on facebook. and andy talked about china. i will guarantee you we spent, get this, 700 billion minutes on facebook last month alone. 700 billion. i guarantee you the chinese, their children and a lot of others are not -- >> i'm going to say something that you're going to hate. but i don't -- would you let your 5-year-old drive in the city at night, your car? i just think the same thing with the internet. >> i would. why? >> i really do. i think there's -- i really think it's a world that's way too open to people who are completely unprepared for it. >> and, by the way, you bring up a good point. i -- i listen to rock and roll. i mean, you know, my taste in music is pretty expansive, the same with movies, art, everything else. i'm not talking about facebook

itself. i'm talking about the cultural impact that it's having on a new generation that defines friends in a way that i believe is dangerous. >> and we just let them -- >> this is a new technology. just like with a lot of other technologies, they create a lot of panic, people freak out, then the culture adapts and people figure out how to behave in appropriate ways. it's not going to ruin america. >> no. i'm not panicking or freaking out. facebook has been around for, what, six, seven years? i've watched facebook. but after seven years, you look back over the landscape and i tell you, i don't like what i've seen over the past seven years, where it's leading. wait until you have kids. >> i don't like it. >> i don't like the trend of turning inward. everyone is so self-absorbed. here's what i think about this thing hat just happened. here's a link to something i said. i don't care. >> i'm unfriending you. >> i don't care. >> unfriend!

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streets. you won't see donald like this very often. got him out working in one of his own hotels, the trump hotel there in chicago. >> oh, okay. >> this is the first time i've carried luggage for anybody, including myself, in a long time. it's been a long time. but it was fun. the life of a bellman and working in a hotel is never easy. good job, good job. room service. look at this. this is serious room service. i hope you give me a nice, big, fat tip. have a good time. >> so now we're going to go to the bathroom. >> i'm not into bathrooms. i don't know if i could ever do that job. >> yes, you can. >> only sinks, right? okay. i like that. >> donald trump scrubbing a sink. we like the white gloves. >> they're green. >> we should point oun again this friday we're live in chicago with oprah winfrey herself. we're going to oprah's town. >> what day is today right now? >> it's hard to say. i think it's tuesday.

>> don't mess it up, you guys. >> friday, oprah winfrey, live from chicago. it's going to be big. >> awesome. you'll love this story, everybody. jewelry heist. >> okay. >> about 60 miles outside of london. let's get to the video. guys with sledge hammers and mopeds smashing up the store. watch the shadow here. a little old lady running in in a red coat with a purse, just starts whipping people's behinds with her purse. >> whaling on them. >> she breaks up a huge jewelry heist with her purse. look at these little pansy fleeing on their little vespas. she stopped the robbery. they dropped the merchandise. she picked it up, returned it to the shop owner. she actually helped detain one of these guys. and the rest of them were arrested shortly thereafter thanks to this little old lady and her purse. let's listen to one of the eye witnesses. >> we were terrified. we locked the door, hid under the desk. we looked outside and, god love her, she was running down the road with a handbag in the air,

banging them on the back of the helmet with a handbag. >> just beaten the you-know-what out of these guys. nice work. >> i like her white stockings. >> yes. those are awesome. up next, bill krystol is joining the conversation. we'll talk to him and his dear friend, glenn beck. and donald rumsfeld spreads the blame for failures in iraq in his first major interview. ♪ it's a new dawn, a new day, a new life ♪ i lost 50, 50 pounds. ♪ and i'm feeling good [ liz ] and weight watchers new pointsplus program gave me the edge to do it. ♪ it's a new day i can't believe i get to live my life in this body. i mean seriously... look what i'm wearing! ♪ and this old world is a new world ♪ ♪ and a bold world i'm feeling good, i'm feeling happy. [ jennifer ] go on, join for free. weight watchers new pointsplus. because it works.

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there are known knowns. there are things we know we know. we also know there are known unknowns. that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. but there are also unknown unknowns, the ones we don't know we don't know. >> excuse me. but is this an unknown unknown? there's several unknowns and i'm wondering -- >> i'm not going to say which it is. >> you believed absolutely, categorically, saddam hussein had weapons of mass destruction? >> i don't do a lot of things categorically. anyone who has been around intelligence-gathering knows that can be wrong. colin powell has been around for longer than anybody in terms of -- >> he said he was devastated. >> of course he was. everyone was. it was uniform across the board that -- that it was reasonable to assume that he had chemical and biological weapons. >> but you were wrong.

>> the intelligence was certainly wrong. >> some unknowns now known. welcome back to "morning joe." >> didn't your brother work for him? >> yeah. >> how did that turn out? he was there six years, right? >> yes. >> did he like him? >> yes. >> did they almost come to fisticuffs? >> no. john heilman is still with us. joining the table, the founder and editor of "the weekly standard," bill kristol. bill wrote the forward for "the neoconservative persuasion." thanks very much for joining us. we still have pat buchanan with us, right? >> no, he's gone. >> i never know who's coming in. >> we're only alolowed to have one conservative on the set at a time. they're afraid we'll take over. >> we'll continue with the rumsfeld story. why don't i read that? >> i want to talk to bill. i've been waiting for a long

time. i want to talk about rumsfeld with bill. "the neoconservative persuasion," obviously a remarkable man, your father. when i read your introduction, i was expecting you to talk about what a remarkable scholar he was and how he shaped what we know as modern american conservatism. instead it was like a love note to your dad. it was very moving and personal. >> well, thank you. i think one interesting thing about these essays, which weren't published before, is how diverse they are. a lot of them aren't on politics. they're on religion, literature, an essay that he wrote when he was 22 years old. i think it's -- there's a lot of interesting material. even if my father hadn't been important in american politics

and the history of american ideas, his essays are just worth reading on their own. >> what's so fascinating about him, i'm using his own words here, he was a neomarxist, then a neotrotskyist, then a neoliberal and finally a neoconservative and always skeptical. i'm just wondering in 2011, ten years after 9/11, if he wouldn't have also been skeptical of where neoconservatism is right now. >> well, he might have been. >> he probably would have been. >> he only died a year and a half ago. he was -- i think he was happy about progress of neoconservatism and it stature, but he was always one to retain what he called a quality of doubt. you know, you don't want to be too certain about yourself. >> a quality of doubt. >> he thought on the whole that neoconservatism hadcontribution was open to any world view.

the reason he called this a persuasion, the neoconservative persuasion, he thought it should not be an ideology or a doctrine. >> even though neoconservatives have been painted as being extraordinarily dogmatic and ideological, like being skeptical of -- >> i don't know who did that painting. >> of a dog -- >> here we are at the heart of msnbc. no. >> the mainstream -- the mainstream media did that. >> yeah, i guess. i guess. look, i'm sure some neoconservatives like people of any persuasion become too dogmatic. he had strong views and he wasn't scared to push those views. he was a strong anticommunist and he expressed his doubts. he was unembarrassed to say we stand with america and we stand against communism. we stand with liberal democracy

and against authoritarianism and radicalism and the like. you can combine a quality of doubt with a commitment to fighting for what you believe is right. >> do you have a quality of doubt yourself with your own neoconservative views? >> sure. sure. good you look at the "the weekly standard," i brought this here to educate you guys. they let me bring it on set. that was nice. it's a new moment of civility, tolerance. i'm here from fox. i'm here at the throbbing serve center of msnbc. >> it's a real breakthrough. >> can i say something? fox, very modest digs, you know. very old equipment. here, this is high-tech. you guys -- i got to talk to the people there who own you. you're really treated well here. >> roger required him to say this before he was allowed to come on. >> i have a strong editorial. i'm making the case for standing with the democrats, with the opposition in egypt. lee smith and mike duran were skeptical about that, more concerned with stability.

there's a diversity of views among our friends. sure. >> obviously there have been fights among yourself, people with chalkboards. men bearing chalkboards. and others. have you been concerned that -- that too many conservatives are too concerned with, quote, stability, that they did not back the protesters in the street? do you think that's short-sighted? >> yes. i think -- it's understandable in the middle east to think that an adequate stability is worth cherishing and one shouldn't be cavalier about revolutions, people taking to the streets. that often outcome. having said that, i don't think americans should be on the side of dictators during a genuine, democratic protest not led by the muslim brotherhood. one has to worry about the muslim brotherhood, just like one has to worry about communism in france and germany in the

late '40s. there were communist parties that were under control of the soviet union and tried to subvert democracies. but we were able to work around that. i think we actually can have a very good outcome here in egypt. >> john heilman? >> that editorial, bill, you just characterized it as being strong. >> i'll let you characterize it. >> it's strong and it created some controversy. in it, you sort of called out glenn beck. and said that his -- compared him to the -- as propounding those views when you're talking about the caliphate. he's kind of a nut is what you're saying. correct me if i'm wrong. >> i didn't say that. >> i've said that, but he did not. >> i'm curious about why it is that it has taken so long for people of your stature and the republican establishment to call out glenn beck. and why there are so few of you willing to take that position and say this guy is not --

should not be part of the mainstream of our conversation. he's marginalizing himself, et cetera. >> i'm not going to get into a debate with glenn beck here on msnbc. i'll do it on fox where we're fair and balanced. that's not fair at all. there was a long piece a year ago on -- partly on glenn beck, the tea parties, what was healthy and not so admirable, certain strains of thoughts among people like glenn beck. so i don't think it's fair to say, oh, you guys should be calling him out and monitoring everyone on your side. that's not -- we publish what we believe in "the weekly standard." i'm hap tpy to defend what i sa >> i understand. there have been very few elected republicans who have said things as strong as what you said in that editorial. >> elected republicans don't go around parsing the words of every person on -- on talk radio or on tv any more than elected

democrats do. elected republicans have a lot to be proud of. elected republicans have stood with president obama, despite their dislike for him and their design for a new president, on iraq and afghanistan. it would be very easy to -- i'm proud of the republican party in the last years for shunning partisanship in foreign policy and being really more bipartisan than people were in the proceeding couple of years of the bush administration. >> what republicans stand out to you as true conservatives and really -- perhaps those you could see being successful in the future? >> i think the congressman from wisconsin, paul ryan -- >> real standouts. >> chris christie, the governor of new jersey. i mean, i'm fond of the younger republicans, the newer ones. joe is laughing. >> well, i -- i'm laughing because john heilman was -- because john heilman accused me of doing a chris christie commercial this morning. >> totally.

>> good morning, trenton. >> i was waiting to see how long it took for his name to come out of your mouth. >> i can't dede whether the ticket for 2012 should be ryan rubio or christie/rubio. >> it's some really nice options. >> we have to persuade them to run. could you work on that? you have a lot of clout there. >> we'll push chris to run. let's talk about your dad, go back to your dad's book. and your father made a shift, obviously, in the '60s. to neoconservatism. his essay "what's bugging the students," i wonder if i have it might or if i'm close that this is really one of his most important essays. it's when he looked at anarchy without an agenda. radicalism in search of an idea. instead of an idea in search of a radical movement to change things that finally said,

enough. anihilism is enough. i'm a conservative. >> i think that's true, but i'd say that he looked -- he second, well, what accounted for this movement rising up in a hugely prosperous, successful, liberal democracy? does it tell us something about problems that deeper? the students didn't come from nowhere. they were brought up in this successful country of ours. what was impressive about my father's work in the '60s and '70s, he wasn't willing to just denounce the students or denounce the generation. he said, does this mean we have to rethink our social and cultural and political thinking? is there something wrong with liberalism and progressivism? has it been too shallow a basis for healthy democracy? >> explain neoconservatism, the difference between bill buckley conservatism, which neoconservatives in the '60s were not repelled by but they were offended with a notion, as your father explained as a young, jewish kid growing up in

the great depression, i don't want somebody telling me we don't need new deal programs. explain that. >> my father was a good friend of bill buckley and had a great respect for him. bill buckley was a big goldwater supporter. that's what real conservatives were back then. neoconservatives were friendlier, comfort wbl the new deal programs, they felt libe l liberals got out of control and went too far. and then they rethought various aspects of the liberal agenda. they're less dogmatic, less committed to simply cutting government. they're less libertarian, perhaps, than old-fashioned goldwater conservatives. there's been a lot of melding and merging of different kinds of conservatism over the last 30, 40 years. and every vinindividual has a different combination of these strains. activists in foreign fallacy, comfortable with a strong america and part of being a strong america is having a strong welfare state. a strong welfare state, my father argued, was a limited welfare state. we try to do everything and you get this huge debt and you can't

do anything well. he was not against the social safety net, he was not against medicare or social security, he was not against public education. he was for improving those, reforming those. and for a strong american presence in the world. that's a little different from more traditional conservatism. >> i want to go back to your list of republican leaders. you mentioned paul ryan, marco rubio, chris christie. you're credited with discovering sarah palin a few years back, introducing her to washington. do you feel like you overestimated her at that time? do you feel like she is still fit to be a national republican leader? >> well, i think she's fit to be a national republican leader. one thing i -- >> like a president? >> one thing i've never liked is a person like me saying who is fit to do what. she's earned the right to put herself before the voters. i'm a big believer in competitive primaries. my line in the magazine is everyone who wants to be

president, you're not going to have a better chance than this year and you should run. i have a lot of confidence in republican voters to look at these people and i think we'll learn a lot as we go through that. i have a high regard for sarah palin. but i will say i've been disappointed since she resigned as governor, i thought she had a real chance to take the lead on a few policy issues too, do a little more in terms of framing the policy agenda. i don't think she's done that. but she's a shrewd woman and i wouldn't underestimate her. >> has she lived up to the potential that you saw in her in alaska? >> maybe not quite. but she's young and she could do it in this campaign or four or eight years from now. >> i want to talk about afghanistan. >> yeah. >> are you growing skeptical of what's happening in afghanistan? or do you -- you still believe like general petraeus that we need to stay the course without -- >> i think we differ on this. this is an issue on which conservatives have debated.

i was more skeptical a year ago. actually, judging from -- from what i can tell, the military progress is greater than people expected over the last 6 to 9, 12 months. the marines are doing an incredible job. they really have the taliban on the run. now we'll see if they can turn that into political achievement and advancement there. >> my can concern has mainly been that after 10, 11 years there, we don't have an end game on when do we get out. the kye tecia tells us -- when e hunting down terrorists, i certainly understood that. there are 50 al qaeda members, maybe 100 according to panetta, in afghanistan. i just wonder at what point do you say -- does the president say, does petraeus say, we could use our money and our attention in other places, much more

effectively than here? >> the president and petraeus expect to be able to start diminishing our troop presence this summer, as we ended up diminishing it quite rapidly in iraq after the success of the surge there. i just think it's very hard to write a scenario for a reasonably stable and safe middle east. therefore, ultimately for a reasonably safe united states where they withdraw in chaos or in defeat from afghanistan. just as i did with iraq, at the end of the day, it's frustrating. god knows it's not a -- if you could go around the world picking places to be engaged, it's not the one we'd pick, but we have to see it through. i have great confidence in general petraeus' leadership here. >> bill kristol, you'll stay with us for the hour. coming up, rand paul and steny hoyer. >> i'm easy. we're used to being fair and balanced at fox. plus, donald rumsfeld spreads the blame for the failures in iraq. also, savannah guthrie joins

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because the president has ridden troop levels too quickly was the failure in the excuse of the war. >> i don't have enough confidence to say that that's right. it's possible. it's hard do know. the path you didn't take is always smoother. >> rumsfeld lays the blame on too many hands on the steering wheel. no coordinated plan. first, the president's right-hand advisory in the white house, condoleezza rice -- >> she never served in a serious administration position. she'd been an academic. a lot of academics like to have meetings. every time a big issue got before the president, he was

perfectly willing to make a decision. >> and secretary powell? >> he did not, in my view, do a good job of managing the people under him. there was a lot of leaking out of the state department. and the president knew it. and it was unhelpful. 21 past the hour. welcome back to "morning joe." joining us now, jim miklaszewski. we're looking at the rumsfeld interview, jim. and, boy, he is spreading the blame, isn't he? >> well, the one thing about this book that i have to give credit to donald rumsfeld for is that he remained true to himself. even when he was here at the pentagon conducting the wars in afghanistan and iraq, it seemed that if you listen to rumsfeld, he did everything correctly and it was everybody else who made the mistakes. he doesn't spare anybody in wire brushing in this book. but the one point that i really have a problem with is rumsfe rumsfeld's account that it was two weeks after the 9/11

attacks, both here at the pentagon and in new york, that president bush sat rumsfeld down and said, we ought to go over plans to attack iraq. in other words, rumsfeld claiming that it was president bush's idea. but only four hours after the american flight 77 slammed here into the pentagon, just a few floor business low where i'm standing now in the tank, which itself was filled with smoke at the time, rumsfeld had all his top advisers, military and civilian together, and i have a copy of the log notes that were taken at that time. the timestamp is 1:45 in the afternoon. that's four hours after the plane struck the pentagon. and according to the note-takers and more than one set of notes reflects this, rumsfeld said, my intent is to hit saddam hussein at the same time. we ought not to look only at ubl. i think what's particularly telling about that is in all the

turmoil of that day, 9/11, and figuring out who did fly these planes into these buildings in new york and here at the pentagon, he would come up with saddam hussein, an indication perhaps that it was rumsfeld's intent when he took office to somehow get at saddam hussein. >> bill kristol, let me ask you about this. i always thought it was fascinating when tim russert interviewed the vice president right after 9/11. he said, of course, saddam hussein had nothing to do with this. and he kept the focus on afghanistan. that at least the first brush of history has it being rumsfeld and cheney who pushed the administration to iraq. is -- is -- is what jim is telling you from the pentagon records, is that a fair reflection of what you remember with all of your close contacts with the white house? >> i don't know how close my contacts were. i think everyone on the day itself didn't know exactly what connections there were between people who had attacked us and

saddam. it wasn't unreasonable. saddam had terrorist connections obviously. when vice president cheney did the interview with tim, they decided they knew who was responsible for this and they had to go after him in afghanistan first. i do think ultimately it would have been hard to explain leaving saddam in power in the middle east, given the new situation post-9/11, but that was a different calcules. that was debated in congress in september and october of 2002. >> but the idea that president george w. bush came up with the idea immediately -- and whether it's in films or editorials, it's that george w. bush wanted to show his daddy what he could do. that's -- that's nonsense. rumsfeld early on had his eyes set on saddam. >> bill clinton had his eyes set on saddam. we were at war, in effect, with saddam. we were running no-fly zones over 1/3 of iraq. we had an embargo on iraq that saddam said was effective propaganda for him. it was causing suffering in

iraq. you couldn't have maintained the no-fly zones and the -- and the sanctions for the decade or so. we were in a crisis with iraq really from 1991 on, certainly from '98 on. i think that any administration would have had to make a different decision about what to do about saddam hussein. maybe they would have decided not to go to war, but the idea that was crazy to think about dealing with saddam hussein, bill clinton bombed saddam hussein for four days at the end of 1998. >> jim, of course, you can go back to 1998, which we keep bringing up. i remember it was congress, our congress, that passed a resolution that the white house supported to remove saddam hussein from power. you go back and look at the quotes of al gore and -- and teddy kennedy and john edwards and bill clinton at the time, and this was an idea a long time coming. >> oh, that's absolutely right. as a matter of fact, as bill kristol points out, we were flying those no-fly zones.

as one air force officer told me at the time, in an almost provocative sense in some cases, they called it trolling for sams. in other words, trying to draw fire from the iraqis so they could fire back. and in the end, i think, what this comes down to in terms of donald rumsfeld is his, again, trying to distance himself from some of the failures in iraq. and when he -- when he says, as a matter of fact, that, look, we drove out saddam hussein. we drove the taliban out of afghanistan, but it was donald rumsfeld and the bush administration who diverted all of the attention and resources away from afghanistan to concentrate on iraq, that allowed the taliban to reconstitute itself and pose a new threat in afghanistan, which is why afghanistan is now the longest-running u.s. war in history. >> jim miklaszewski, thank you so much.

incredible reporting. >> i want to go to savannah. first, john heilman is about to burst. >> i just want to say, it's very important. here's a guy who has written an 800-page memoir, and he's reflecting on his role in this particular conflict, and he has apparently on the basis of the contemporaneous record just blatantly lied about it. i think that should cast some doubt on the -- the total value of this record. if you can't get straight the fact that there were contemporaneous notes that suggested that your version of history is kind of made up. >> the questioning.

and they feel that he came off looking pretty good. and even got to use his money line that they love so much around here, out-win, out-educate, win the future. they were pretty excited about it. >> it was a win-win for both of those guys when they get together. it's always a win-win for them. let's move to egypt. we see the president being -- i guess you can say pragmatic on egypt. last week he seemed to be more with the demonstrators, pushing mubarak out. but now quietly behind the scenes, they are negotiating with opponents of mubarak to try to sort of have a glide path to -- to elections. >> yeah. >> what's -- what's their -- what's their strategy moving forward? >> i think the number one overarching goal right now is stability and making sure that the scenes we saw a week ago in

tahrir square don't reproduce themselves. they know that that stability hinges on the protesters being satisfied that there are meaningful reforms, not just words but actions. a lot of things that have come out of the egyptian government, some of those words have been spoken before. now the rubber meets the road. i think they want to -- they're not calling directly and still haven't called directly for mubarak to step down immediately, but they do think that this path to free and fair elections has to be sut out and followed up with concrete action. >> savannah guthrie, thank you. you can catch "the daily rundown" at 9:00 on msnbc. what did the president's address to the chamber of commerce say about the future of his economic policies? vern buchanan joins us next to talk about that. can i eat heart healthy without giving up taste?

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i strolled over from across the street, and, look, maybe if we had brought over a fruit when i first moved in, we would have gotten off to a better start. but i'm going to make up for it. >> oh! >> all right. >> i am sorry, we just got to say, mika, all the things we said for two years, for two years -- >> yes. >> -- about growing jobs and how you do that, he's -- i've got vertigo here. the president agrees. he agrees with the chamber. he agrees with us. >> joining us now, republican congressman from florida, member of the weighs and means committee, representative vern buchanan. of course, there was little bit, i'd say, fiction with the chamber. >> a little bit? >> just a tad bit. >> it's stunning, vern. you and steny hoyer and some other people have gotten together in the past and talked about a bipartisan, pro-business agenda. and now i think the president's

getting there. what's going on? >> well, obviously for the last very, very chilly relationship. most people in the country have viewed this administration and the congress as very antibusiness. i'm glad he's talking about bringing over the fruitcake. it's important. it's moving in the right direction. >> we don't need a fruitcake. just don't give us billion-dollar stimulus projects every year, you know? >> you can't talk about jobs without talking about small business and business in general. >> yeah. >> i think that we -- i'm glad to see him do that. but the proof is also in the pudding. >> bill kristol, it is a stunning turn-about by this president who always seems so disconnected from the needs of business. >> did he really? hasn't it been a crony capitalist administration from the beginning? the big businesses always had a warm welcome at the obama white house. certainly wall street did.

wall street populated the highest ranks of the obama administration. i want it to be pro-market and -- >> they say that obama's people did not understand what creates jobs in america. >> i think they don't understand small business and entrepreneurship. i hope these policies are pro-market and pro-entrepreneurship and not just koezingyicozying up to a f businesses. >> tell me how that's going to happen. it looks like the stage is set. >> that's what the republican house is going to do. to cut all of these programs, all of these subsidies, and create an environment for viny s individuals and families. >> vern, i don't want you to have vertigo yourself. he's sounding a lot like katrina vandenheuvel, but republicans and democrats alike -- and when i saw it when i was up there, it just seems that in the past, they've taken care of huge corporations and a lot of times i

it's been the small business owners that have carried it on their backs. >> big korticorporations have a to capital. small and medium-sized businesses don't. i'm enthused about the direction he's moving in. at the end of the day when you look back over the last couple of years, you can say one thing and then you're out there promoting chard check, promoting things for the trial lawyers. that's what business people don't like. >> let's talk about access to capital, though. has it changed for a small business? let's say a small business owner has a great idea, a great start-up, has great credit. can he get credit from banks today in 2011? that's what it's going to take to grow this economy. not government jobs. >> i went to a -- i put on a seminar talking about access to credit. 150 business people were in the room. i asked how many are having a tough time getting credit or challenged with their banks or can't get their line of credit renewed. i thought i'd be 30 in the room. everybody in the room raised their hand. it's a big issue.

four years ago, you could get -- you get access to credit. today there's nothing. if you want to borrow, 500, put up a $500,000 cd. that's the environment small businesses are in. in tallahassee, 99% of all of the companies registered there are small and medium-sized businesses. >> how do -- how do people like vern -- how do conservatives get small business owners in a position where they have access to capital without the federal government telling banks how to do their business? >> the small business owners i've spoken to and the potential small business owners are most spooked by the regulatory burdens being put on them. health care, epa. a lot of that stuff is something that congress has to take a real close look at, stop, or roll back, i think. >> let me just add on the health care thing, that's one of the igbu igbui biggest issues for small businesses. they can't get it or it's not affordable.

>> and, you know, mika, we sit here talking about this in the abstract. i can tell you all of my friends who are small business owners in pensacola and across america, they say the same thing. it's -- the regulations, as bill said, the health care bill, it's not that they know specifically what's wrong with it. it's what they don't know that scares them, that stops them from hiring three, four more new workers. >> we'll bring someone else into this conversation coming up. representative vern buchanan, thank you. coming up, has nancy shut out blue dog democrats? we'll ask that to representative steny hoyer, on our set next. ♪

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does my friend, nancy pelosi, get it now? >> i really don't think so. we went through this whole -- i

ran against her for minority leader. i just -- we still have not had that connection between the blue dog members and leadership. >> is she not reaching out to you? >> there's been no communication whatsoever. steny hoyer has always done a very good job of reaching out to a lot of blue dog members. >> all right. 43 past. >> why are you so great and why is nancy so -- >> yeah, what's going on there? >> what's going on? >> heath is a very close friend of mine, as you can probably tell. he can handle himself very well in putting himself forward as a candidate for speaker. he didn't expect to win. he wanted a place for he and his colleagues to be. having said that, i really don't think his characterization of nancy is correct in terms of reaching out. she meets with heath, with the blue dogs on a regular basis. >> nancy pelosi doesn't reach out, we've heard that time and time again. >> my experience, joe, and i'm in the leadership, as you know,

and we meet all the time. on every significant issue, particularly where the blue dogs have an issue, we meet together. i think perhaps she doesn't have the personal relationship with a number of them. that may be accurate. >> right. >> but i think she does reach out. she reaches out to all the caucus. >> let's move from nancy pelosi to barack obama. you come from a district that i would characterize as a swing district. i think when you leave, if a strong republican rises up there, he or she could win. are you relieved that president obama is starting to reach out to the business community? >> i think -- >> to the chamber and commerce and to small business owners that watching what he's saying now? >> it very important to do so. i tell people the democratic party sees themselves as the party of workers. but if we're going to be the party of workers, we have to be the party of employers. people have to understand that synergy.

i think it's appropriate the president reach out. we have an agenda that i call make it in america. that is a number of meanings. obviously going to make it, you are going to succeed. but also that we're going to manufacture things, make things and sell them abroad, grow things and sell them abroad. the president wants to double experts. the way we'll do that is to have a working relationship between business and the congress and the president. so we can have policies in place which will allow that to happen. >> i love this table. we have the house democratic whip, steny hoyer, with us. we have the editor of the weekly standard, bill kristol with us, and john heilman. >> our resident marxist. >> i could make steny's life worse by praising him. he's such a reasonable guy. democrats, we like to work with. >> it's all right, bill. it's all right. >> nancy pelosi has her thumb on him, keeping those reasonable, moderate democrats down. i don't say any of that, though.

>> i'm just pleased to be here with you, bill. that's all. >> be nice! >> they're saying, what is kristol doing there? >> seriously. >> this is a nightmare. >> i'm curious. don't you find it striking to hear the president talking about employers now instead of employees? the president extending bush-era tax cuts after campaigning against bush-era tax cuts. extending them for -- for almost a decade. i mean, this is -- this turn is more stunning than bill clinton's in 1995. certainly more quick. >> yeah, much quicker. people talk about bill clinton's move to the middle, but it took him a few months. i told my conservative republican friends who were very confident that barack obama is a committed leftist and he'll never make that pivot, i didn't believe it and i've been right. in two or three months, he's moved far to the center, at least in turps of h terms of hi.

obama care is going to be a dividing issue and he can't walk away from that. the greatest thing that bill clinton had was that health care failed so he could leave it behind. i think barack obama remains a big-government obama care president. >> i want to follow up on what bill alluded to. i think barack obama is a pragmatist. now, he's a liberal pragmatist. i think that's accurate, but he's a pragmatist. he wants this country to work and he wants his administration to be successful. therefore, he's reaching out to others to say how can we make this country work better? the message we got in the election was focus on jobs. how do you focus on jobs? our make it in america agenda that i talked about, joe, is an agenda which say, "a," you can be successful in america and,

"b," the american people believe it we're not making things in america, we don't we competitive in the fwloebl maglobal marketp. you have to make sure that policy is consistent with making profit when you make things in america or we're not going to get to where the president wants to be. he talked about investment in our infrastructure. he talked about investment in education. his friends at the chamber of commerce absolutely believe he's right. >> we can say that. his friends that chamber of commerce. actually, john, if you look -- you can be writing a book, obviously, on the 2012 election. just about every issue has been taken off the table for you now, except for barack obama's health care plan. i think bill is right. that's -- that's the one bright dividing line between where republicans and are democrats are. it's stunning how quickly that's happened. >> the president is not an idiot. one thing is true. you cannot get reelected as a democrat running for reelection as president with the vast

majority of the business community being hostile to you. it's just not possible. >> what was he doing for two years? he never saw 2010 coming. >> i think he would -- i think he would dispute some of these points. to bill's point earlier, if you had the president here, people say, well, the president is a socialist. the president would say back in the beginning of 2009, i had be had political cover from paul krugman to alan greenspan to nationalize the banks. that would behe appropriate socialist marxist thing to do, and he didn't try to national them or break up the biggest banks. and his answer would be i've never been as far as left as people thought i was. >> that's a good campaign slogan, i did not nationalize the bank, president barack obama. he's not a socialist, he's just a law professor. >> he did campaign for a single payer health care, i think the president would say some of his

rhetoric was too tough on business for sure and he's trying to dial back that. >> politically, though, he is squeezed out a lot of the republican arguments. >> steny? >> thank you, mika. i'm glad to be here with the four of you. hi there, folks, i'm here. the fact, though, is the rhetoric about socialism and marxism just distracts people from the issues and it's nonsense, joe. >> i think we all agree with that. >> the fact of the matter is on health care, bill is correct, this is probably the most contentious issue, but obviously there are a lot of component parts that people like. and the majority of people don't want repeal. do they want to see changes and fixes to make it work well for them and their families and their businesses which is going to be very important, i've reached out to the business communities small and large and said, look, tell me how you believe this needs to be tweaked in order to make it work for you and your families. that's important. but i think the president will do that. i think he is doing it.

that's why he's reaching out. is he focused on the next election? of course. that's what our system is about, looking at the consumers, ie, the voters, and what kind of product do you want. >> the four of us are glad that you came and you got a few years in. >> jane harman, jane harman, i am very sorry. >> yeah. >> that jane harman has taken this job and she will do a wonderful job there. >> she will. >> she has been a voice and really an intellectual resource for us on national security items, on intelligence items, a wonderful member of the congress of the united states and going to be a real terrific leader of the wilson senate. >> she'll be great. >> representative steny hoyer, that's very much for coming in, this was a great conversation. >> i enjoyed it. >> it was fun. still ahead -- come back, okay? >> you bet. rand paul why he's calling for an end of all foreign aid. keep it right here on "morning joe." losing weight clicked for me when i lost weight right away.

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i thought you gave a great speech in arizona. >> i appreciate it. >> but i don't think that people will respond to it. the civility in media and politics will go downhill. how much damage do you think the media is doing by participating in this rancor, and people have accused me of that? >> i don't think it helps. >> but how much damage is it doing to the country? >> i think what it does is over the long term, it is making it harder and harder for the sensible center to get together to solve problems. i think a lot of politicians think the way i get on the news is if i insult somebody, and not rewarding politicians for simply

insulting the other side but rather rewarding them with coming up for sensible solutions. >> that's a pipe dream and you know that will never happen. >> come on, bill, you can start the trend. >> i don't think i'm a personal attack guy, i call it the way i think it should be called. all right. good morning. it's 8:00 on the east coast. more of o'reilly and obama. what an incredible interview. with us on set the founder and editor of the weekly standard, bill kristol. and willie back at the table. >> willie and i do what we do every night at 8:00. >> you go to the holiday inn. >> we go to the holiday inn. >> near cbs. >> smoke cigarettes and watch o'reilly. we get through our second or third pack. >> yes. >> it's near the end. >> you're going to do it again. >> and he does this. >> what do you think, though, of

the question why do people hate you so much? and i wonder if that ever would have been asked about george w. bush. >> i wonder. i wonder would anyone have dared to ask president bush that kind of question? the people in the press hated you a lot of them. why? why? >> i don't know. you have to ask them. i'm not a hater. and so sometimes it's hard for me to understand why somebody hates somebody. >> well, apparently the people missed that. >> yeah, mika. >> good job, mika. >> i'm sorry. i was wrong. it's not hard to say. i did miss that. and i was asking the question out loud and i figure it out and he looked and called me out. >> no doubt about it. >> speaking of fox, we have bill kristol here. >> yes. >> who spent his first 15 minutes here mocking our set. >> you want to tell me i'm wrong, too? go ahead. i deserve it. >> no.

you're a beacon of enlightenment. >> you are a light shining brightly on the hill to be compared to me. >> that's not good. >> let's talk about the neo-conservative persuasion by its selected essays, byits father irving kristol, and i love the fact that it suggests an eu flag here that i'm sure his father would love. but, you know, bill, one of the things i complain on this set a good bit is the fact over the past couple of years a lot of conservatives have been distracted by name calling, calling the president a marxist or a fascist or a racist, and it's become less about ideas, sort of getting on your side and we're in this clan versus that clan. and democrats do it, too. the thing is reading this book, now, this is so refreshing, this is when an essay could move a party or make a difference in a

movement. and your father did it for the better part of 40 years. and it's all in this book. >> thanks. i would say just about the current moment. i think we've had a pretty thorough debate about a lot of ideas on both the left and the right and foreign policy, domestic policy. i think this year is a very interesting year. i look at "national affairs" which my friend started a year and a half ago which is a success to "the public interest" which my father started and edited for 40 years and had interesting articles in it, looking at national affairs, how do we reform health care, what about entitlements, what's the right way to think about the welfare state that provides a safety net but also provides safety for individuals and allows freedom, you know, it's a vigorous intellectual debate on the right. we have a piece in "the weekly standard" a little bit in the weeds, but still important, should states be allowed to go bankrupt. how will they deal with the huge pension burdens they have and

there's a debate on conservatives among that. >> in the 1960s he had a lot of members of congress reading those essays. today there's a crowding out from talk radio. there's a crowding out from cable news on the left and the right and the center, there's a crowding out from bloggers and sometimes i'm worried that members of congress don't read "the weekly standard" on the right or "the nation" on the left and are more influenced by the noise. >> we romanticize the past. i fgrew up in the '60s. i remember how exciting it was to know anyone who served in any capacity. >> but your father's ideas. >> he had a big influence on the '70s, jack kemp took a great interest in his writings and jack kemp began to be a supply side economics proponent and he ended up urging president reagan to endorse it. it's a minority. the paul ryans of today, there's a minority of congressmen who reads "the weekly standard" and

e-mails a comment at 9:00 a.m. on a saturday. most congressmen have more of a life. not to offend paul, he's a wonderful family guy and has three kids and has a wonderful family life and is happy about the green bay packers. the guys are all extremely excited. i'm more optimistic about the current right. the new york intellectual world, the '40s, '50s, '60s, when you read the essays, it's a high quality of literary and intellectual argument. >> i went through the litany before, but your father was a no nomad, he kept moving, he said, i've been a neomarxist, a neotrotskyist and finally a neo-conservative. i'm wondering where did his philosophy evolve? where was it evolving in the last years of his life? because he was always moving. >> the point he was making there he was also a neo.

he was uncomfortable with orthodoxy, even when he was a young trotskyist and he thought he could bring a better revolution. and there were elements of doubt and skepticism and he retained that to the end, some of the interesting essays are the very late ones from the past decade that he wrote in the '70s and '80s actually and there, too, he's raising questions and saying i was wrong about a couple of things. i thought neo-conservativism was absorbed by neoconservatism, but it's a different kind of impulse. i think he would say that american politics is an interesting politics and open to ideas. you know, we all talk about the interest groups, john is talking about business and you guys need business our side, but it's striking when you really look at the political discourse and president obama deserves credit for it in 2007, 2008 how america still responds to arguments, i would say, one way or the other. and one of the interesting things about the current moment is how much things are up in the

air, how fluid a situation it is. i don't know, five years from now is government bigger or smaller, will we fundamentally reform about entitlement or do nothing about it, will we have an isolation policy or a neoisolationism policy? the degree of options that are open to the america public and political leaders. >> where do you think the center of gravity is now? we were talking about your father and bill buckley's idea of conservatism versus your father's neoconservatism motion. we have a new force, the tea party, that is more populist, has more of an isolationest strain to it, map out the ideology frontier where the republican party is now. >> there are cross-cutting cleavages in a sense. my father had a nice interesting defense in an essay he wrote in 1986 he called conservatism

populism, he thought you should be wary of it as the founding fathers were, there's a reasonable we don't put everyone up for a referendum, there's a reason we have a deliblrative process, there are times, too, when elites deserve -- the kick in the behind from a populist sentiment and i think my father thought it was true in recent years, in the mid-'90s he was defending that. that's the interesting thing we'll see over the next year as the republican presidential debates go forward, how much of a support is there in the republican party among tea party activists for really withdrawing from the world and for cutting defense. i gave a speech to a republican group in virginia just saturday night in richmond, and discussed a little bit foreign -- discussed defensive foreign policy a little bit and i was struck how strongly they believed in a strong america.

they don't think, gee, we have to cut everything and defense should be cut just the way the department of housing and urban development should be cut, but that's a debate in congress and the republicans running for president will have. >> on the landscape of republicans out there who would you say has the loudest and most effective megaphone? >> one of the most interesting things about the moment, not to dot the question, but i'll give you an honest answer, i think there is no leader of the party which i think is a good thing. for too many years it's been the next in line, for too many years it's been bush or dole. it's an unbelievable party from 1952, the year i was born, to 2004, there was a nixon, a bush, or a dole on every republican ticket except for 1964. this is a very hierarchical party, bush beats dole, dole gets the nomination next time, bush beats mccain, mccain gets the nomination. >> reagan loses to ford. >> the boldest thing the republican party has done in the last 40 years was nominate a

different bush instead of just going to the next in line. so, i really do think this is a moment where that's all changed and there are interesting people who have run before, there are totally new faces, there are people in congress who are veterans, there are people who have only just come and who are making a big difference. i really think it's more like the democratic party often is with a lot of entrepreneurs and i do think barack obama has made a difference. he's taught us you can be a state legislator and run for the senate and win and become the president of the united states four years later and a lot of, joe knows this well, politicians learn from other politicians and a lot look to that and say, gee, it's interesting, joe biden, chris dodd, hillary clinton, they've been around a long time, they checked the box and look where it got them. barack obama is a talented guy, but an awful wrung republican senators and governors are a lot of talented guys. >> and they emerge. >> in 2012 or 2016.

>> we've heard the arguments that there are a group of candidates who could perhaps get through a primary and not win a generally against obama and on the flip side, say, mitt romney may not get through the primary but he might be able to challenge obama. who stands out to you right now? i won't name you name a pick, but who stands out? >> two things. there was an awful lot of people who thought on the republican side i talked to them in 2007 and 2008 who thought that hillary clinton would be a much tougher general election candidate than barack obama, inexperienced and to the left, and he ended up being pretty good. a lot of people about jimmy carter, i was talking to an old pro who served in the carter administration, in 1979, 1980, they were relishing the fact of running against ronald reagan, don't give us someone serious like john conley or george h.w. bush, but reagan the 69-year-old former actor and governor, i really think it's hard to predict. one of the good things about our primary process for all of its chaos, you get to -- the people

who win the nomination usually are pretty good candidates, that's why they win the nomination and i guess i would let them fight it out. >> is there somebody not being talked about that behind the scenes in the republican party you have your eye on? how about mitch daniels? >> i think mitch is impressive. we'll have to see who runs. i, myself, would love to see chris christie run. i've written editorials to everyone saying please run. i do think personally, no one is asking my advice, they should all run, jeb bush, rich lowery, he wrote an interesting column, you discussed it, saying jeb should run. if he wants to be president of the united states, i totally agree with that. the notion that you wait four years and, what, people don't notice he's a bush at that point? if being a bush is a disqualifier, it's a disqualifier in 2016 as it is in 2012. if it's not, when will he have a better chance. for him and the young guys, paul ryan, mike pence, chose not to run. i regret that i think he has a

lot to say and i think he would be a strong candidate. >> this presupposes, you think obama is imminently beatable in '12. >> i think slightly better than 50/50. >> that has to be the case for your previous argument to make sense. if you think obama is not beatable, waiting for 2016 is better. >> he's beatable. let's wait until next time, it will be better. and hopefully if you believe it's good for the country, you should take a shot and see what you can do. >> see what clinton did in '91, he ran and lightning struck. >> and mario cuomo never became president. >> you think, though, it's a little less likely that obama loses today than it was back in november? >> i think that's why -- >> he's racing to the center, and it certainly changes the dynamic. >> but the economy is ticking up just a little bit -- >> he's got it. >> bill kristol, thank you so much. >> my pleasure. thank you for having me and thank you for your courtesy. and it's great to see you.

>> the book is "the neo-conservative persuasion selected essays from 1942 to 2009." our next guest has a plan to cut $500 billion in spending and he's put it in print. we're going to talk to republican senator rand paul of kentucky, next. also, katrina vanden heuvel will be here this hour. but first, meteorologist bill karins for a check on the forecast. bill? >> an active day out there, 1 to 3 inches of heavy snow plastered new england, later this afternoon as the winds pick up and howl it won't feel nice. snow from hartford to providence and boston but we're clear from new york to d.c. the windchill dropping in a hurry in d.c. now down to 26. look at buffalo, minus 2, very cold windy conditions later today. it won't be anything like what you're experiencing this morning. the other big story? snowstorm heading for the middle of the country. it looks like oklahoma wants to get into it, to wichita will be the bull's-eye, tulsa could get

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over the last two years i've sought advice from many of you as we were grappling with the worst recession most of us have ever known. it's a recession that led to some very difficult decisions. for many of you, that meant restructuring and branch

closings and layoffs that i know were very painful to make. for my administration, it meant a series of emergency measures that i would not have undertaken under normal circumstances. but that were necessary to stop our economy from falling off a cliff. >> now from the capitol, republican senator from kentucky, senator rand paul. senator, it's great to have you on. of course, we've all been waiting to see somebody put cuts down, spending cuts down. >> spell them out for us. >> you have gone there, and you put down a lot of spending cuts. tell us about your plan. >> well, we're just getting started, joe. this is just a modest proposal. we have $500 billion in cut. the reason i call it a modest proposal is not that we're not serious, i call it modest, because even if they adopted it, it would only be a third of one year's deficit. the cuts i'm proposing aren't even enough, and yet here in official washington everybody says, oh, my goodness, we could

never cut that much, so i'm trying to get the debate started. but this is just the beginning, and i want people to realize the enormity of the problem we face and that tinkering with 10% or 12% of the budget, freezing it at 2010 levels, does absolutely nothing to our problem. >> senator, we've all been shocked by what's been going on on the house side of the capitol, where $100 billion plan to cut spending became a $50 billion plan and now it settled in the low 30s which leads to the question if the republican house is afraid to move forward with real spending cuts, who in the senate's going to support your bold plan? >> well, we're just getting started. we have some convincing to do. but to give you an example of how bad the situation is, the president wants to freeze things at 2010 levels but only 12% of the budget, the nonmilitary discretionary spending. if the president gets his way, over the next five years, we add

nearly $4 trillion worth of debt. if the republicans get their way, we add $3 trillion worth of debt. so, the republican plan is better, but it's still too little and we're drowning under a mountain of debt. you cannot get there by looking at a small segment of the government. the real compromise has to be conservatives have to admit that we can cut military spending. >> exactly. >> and liberals have to admit that we can cut domestic spending. the would have to come together for a meeting of minds. but the meeting of minds has to be you have to cut across a broad swath of the whole budget. >> let's talk about our side for a minute. i find it stunning that there are republicans who think we can balance the budget without touching the pentagon and who think we can continue fighting a war in afghanistan where we spend $2 billion a week. what can you do? what can conservatives do to

convince republicans that we just can't keep running a global empire and balance our budget at home? >> i think the first thing you have to tell people, and they have to realize -- and i think most of them do -- is they realize a debt crisis looms. but the second thing you have to tell them is you can be a conservative, i am a conservative, i believe in a strong national defense, i think it's the primary constitutional duty of government, but it doesn't mean we have to have large landmass or land scale wars and that maybe you can fight terrorism with a smaller military with smaller, isolated actions, to snuff out terrorism where we find it. but that having large-scale wars may not be the opportunity or the best way to fight terrorism and we can't afford it. >> so, i'm just wondering, though, in terms of your colleagues, your republican colleagues, what is the problem? because so many of them were so vocal about this, and now that it comes to actually having to crunch the numbers and talk about the cuts, are you having

problems convincing members of your own party? is that what you just told us? >> well, i think there's a disconnect. i'd say every republican senator, and probably every republican congressman, is for a balanced budget amendment, but the thing is you can't be for a balanced budget amendment unless you are willing to step up and say we have to cut spending. it can't be a little bit. you can't freeze spending in a very small segment of the budget, you have to look at the whole thing. my $500 billion in cuts was a 6% cut in the 2011 spending for defense. you can still have a strong national defense and do that. we increased military spending by 120% over the last 10 years. we went from 300 some-odd billion to over $700 billion. you can believe in a strong national defense and say we can't give them a blank check. i think the conservatives aren't quite there yet, but i think

we'll convince them they'll see when you talk about freezing at 2008 levels, just the nonmilitary discretionary spending that adds $3 trillion to the debt. it's not enough. i was at a presentation the other morning that said japan's debt is so large that it's an inevitability that japan will face a debt crisis. these people were quite certain and these were quite smart people who look at sovereign debt and they think japan's locked in a debt crisis of their own and they think we're one to two years behind yap. it scares the bejesus out of me, and there were democrats in the room saying do you know what, we've got to do stuff with our economy. >> you raised hackles by suggesting we end foreign aid to israel and referred to it as welfare. given the backlash and criticism about the comments whether you have had second thoughts about that or whether you're still standing strongly behind the proposal? >> the interesting thing was we presented $500 billion worth of

cuts and all of a sudden the news stories are about three-fifths of 1% about the $500 billion. i said cut foreign aid for everyone. if you ask the american people should we borrow it from china to send money to africa or the middle east or anywhere, whether they are our allies, i'm not against the countries, israel has been our ally, i'm a friend of and want to be a friend of. there are people in israel who proposed it. netanyahu said it would be a good idea to get off of the dependency of foreign aid. in some ways our foreign aid to israel impinges upon israel and tells israel that they can't do what they want to do as a sovereign country. i won't ever tell israel what to do and i won't impinge on their sovereignty but we can't continue to give them money that we don't have. >> it's willie geist. alan simpson was out, again, on

sunday any proposal to cut in the debt that does not go after social security and med compare is not a serious one, but you in your "wall street journal" piece right in the headlines say i will not touch social security or medicare. do you have a plan to -- >> it's not exactly accurate. we didn't say we wouldn't touch it. in this particular bill we wanted to prove anyone there was $500 billion worth of cuts without entitlements just to get started. in two or three weeks i'll propose a fix for social security, we'll fix social security in one fell swoop for 75 years. everybody knows how to do it. everybody's afraid to do it. i'm unafraid to do it. they ran against me in the campaign. the republicans ran against me, the democrats ran against me because i said the age of eligibility will have to rise. if you raise the age of eligibility gradually, we're talking about those 55 and under, you fix the problem with social security. the vast majority of it. you probably will have to have some means testing, too. but i'm going to propose it because i would rather not wait

until these systems, entitlem t entitlements, collapse under their own weight and all of a sudden in 48 hours we have to throw together something. i want to propose it in a reasonable fashion and i'm unafraid. if the voters of kentucky say we don't like you because you will raise the age of social security, i'm going to say the alternative is the whole system could collapse and no one gets social security. >> okay, you don't care about getting re-elected. >> i probably care. i just got here. ask me in six years about that. >> yeah. >> but do you know what, here's what i predict. i predict just like chris christie that if you talk frankly and speak boldly, you'll get more people to vote for you. >> now, what did i say? i predicted this, when he was running, just like i predicted when tom coburn was running, you can tell, there are a few people that go to washington and don't change their stripes once you put on the pin. so, senator, we are very excited because you've talked about cutting discretionary spending,

not just nondefense, but also defense, that's something that your republican breathren are nt talking about and sisters. you talked about the social security fix, you also, of course, talked about the pentagon. of course, the 800-pound gorilla in the room now, medicare and medicaid. obviously you know that that's going to be 30 years out, our greatest liability. are you working on a plan to also slow down the rate of growth for those two programs? >> yeah. it's a secret plan, though, and if i tell you, then you might tell other people. so, right now it's secret. but we're going to fix the budget the first week. the second month i'm going to fix social security. and then the third month we're going to work on medicare. >> there you go. and the fourth month you can rest. >> and good luck with that. senator rand paul, thank you very, very much. >> thank you, rand. >> good luck. >> we always say people don't have the courage to come forward. he just went there. >> he just went there.

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man: hey rick check this out! anncr: geico. 15 minutes could save 15% or more on car insurance. all right. live shot of times square. we were expecting some snow, not here yet. time now to get a check on business before the bell with cnbc's erin burnett. >> she's an international

superstar. >> yes, she is, in the biggest way lately. my god, traveling around the world. going rogue. >> going rouge. >> one day i see her on the upper west side, hey, what's up? >> what are you doing? >> the next she's in the middle of protests in cairo. she's an international woman of mystery, willie. >> take it away. >> here's the line of the day, headline on one story, see confidence at american small companies three-year high, that's good, because we know small businesses account for, who knows, 80% to 90% of hiring in this country. but what's interesting is you look within the numbers and there's lots of positive things to say, but the guy in charge of the survey, the small business survey, actually says owners aren't optimistic enough to commit to serious spending or serious hiring and job generation on main street is still lacking momentum. his takeaway would be the headline may look good, but within it you're simply not seeing the hiring and spending you need to in small businesses for jobs growth.

so, that's the bad news. but i would say the good news is the one company i would highlight today guys is a steel company, the biggest in the world. based in europe. they control about 7% of the global steel market which shows you how fragmented that market is, but they're the biggest. they are expecting faster-than-expected demand for steel which is used in all industrial products. strong recovery in the united states, moderate growth in china, restocking in europe even though demand is barely increasing. that's a goldilocks scenario, china is growing but not too fast and the u.s. is on a grote track and if they are right, we're going in a much better place. >> are they right? >> i hope they're right. >> you hope they're right? >> i hope. i don't know. >> it's so hard to tell. we have so many conflicting numbers coming across, i guess on friday we had the jobs number and it was the best of times, it

was the worst of times. so, i guess it's going to take us a little while longer. i would guess, though, that wall street and small businesses have to be cheered by the fact that the president is moving closer to the chamber of commerce and business interests. >> you know, they definitely are. all of them are. and, again, even as we say, you know, that small businesses account for most of the job creation, they do, but, guys, that's only when big business is growing, because most small businesses simply provide products that big businesses are buying. boeing has tens of thousands of suppliers and they're all little companies, you need big business to do well for small business to do well. >> there you go, erin burnett, thanks very much. >> see you guys in a while. coming up, next katrina vanden heuvel and steven cohen. we'll be right back. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 what if every atm was free ? tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 if you could use any atm, at any bank, tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 anywhere in the world...

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with us now the editor and publisher "the nation" magazine, katrina vann vanden heuvel, and steven cohen is also here with us, his new book is out now. >> great to have you back. >> you believe what many people believe back in the late 1990s, briefings off the record, that russia could be one of america's greatest security threats post -- you know, obviously post-ussr. what do you believe now that they are one of the greatest national security threats. >> the nation's security runs through moscow, if and when afghanistan and iraq are over, there will still be russia. got all the nuclear weapons. sits between islamic civilization and western civilization, has 20 million

islamic citizens of its own. stability, security one through moscow. >> and right now, of course, the islamic faction in russia -- >> one faction, yeah. >> one faction. >> yeah. >> trying to break free. how does that story end? >> i'm not sure they want to break free, but if we think back over the last 15 years, russia's become the epicenter of terrorist attacks in the world. i mean, they just had scores of them. russians tell katrina and i when we go there, we've had many 9/11s. you had one. they blew an airport and a subway in moscow. by the way, one of our problems is on a personal level we've been living in russia off and on for so many years whenever one of the reports of terrorism comes, the first thing we do is call your friends. but russians live with it like the israelis leave with the potential terrorism. >> what is the source of it,

katrina? >> it's out of the north caucasuses, it goes before putin. yeltsin launched the first war. there was a political revolution to the first chechen war, and president vladimir putin came to power in 1999 as the architect or as the protector of security, stability, and order in russia in launching a second war. it's not brought security to russia. every terrorist attack that is brought in the center into moscow or president seat ersberg st. petersburg is a blow. medvedev has tried other paths, economic development, trying to bring a different relationship with that, but it's the cancer. not only the cancer in terms of security but it's the cancer when you read about journalists killing, so many of the killings, they were -- they were reporting on torture and abuses in chechnya, particularly the

president, who is known as a torturer, and when a newspaper we are close to reported that because there's more of a free press in russia than is understood, this man sued the paper for libel. >> yeah. >> i mean, it's really kind of surreal. >> on that story, which, you know, i don't think people here in the west even have a sense of how absolutely jarring that was to any potential for progress. and the ability to cover the chechen crisis and what is happening there. >> yeah. >> the two of you are a wealth of information on russia. by the way, married. i don't know if people know that. and have lived there. >> they know. >> we have a baby, we call our daughter a -- >> what is her name? >> mika. mika. >> now that you mention mika, our daughter, not mika but nika. she's in college, she's 19.

evidently a good number of her friends watch the show in the morning. we're under an injunction not to get into one of our political arguments -- >> that we get into at home. we argue all the time. >> that she lived through for 19 years at the dinner table because she said it would be deeply embarrassing. whatever katrina says, i'm just going to nod. >> good boy. nika, i like that, she's the family mediator, a lot like mika. >> after 9/11, america's first reflex was strike back, strike back hard. and george w. bush really did. i think he seized -- he seized control of that public sentiment for revenge. putin i would guess, whether these counterstrikes against him are shortsighted or not probably has the support of the russian people for the most part, does he not? >> he has the support. but how long will he have it. after all, his promise was we'll tighten things up at home and in return we'll make you secure. and he hasn't.

on the other hand, he's the most popular politician in russia, even honest polls, a lot of them are corrupt, say he maintains about 70% approval rating. >> why is that? you had the slaughter at the school, a heartbreaking slaughter at the school, when was that? >> 2004. >> five, ten years ago? >> 2004. >> you have these continued attacks. how does he stay popular despite that? >> there's two reasons. the memory of yeltsin's rule in the 1990s when things were so bad for so many people and that he did stabilize things like pensions, like salaries, employment is up, poverty is down. but in politics, as you know, having been a politician, if there's no alternative that people can imagine, then you remain popular. it's only when a plausible alternative appears on the tv screen or in your district, which people can -- and so far the alternative is medvedev, but to most russians he doesn't look like a russian leader. >> and they appeal -- that

strength is appealing. bill clinton would say to democrats -- >> better to be strong and wrong. >> -- than to be whatever. >> our media often fixes on the, quote, liberal opposition, the democratic opposition in russia, and in some ways our heart is with them, but the political analysis has to lead you to understand the nationalist communist opposition is stronger in russia today, has more grounded popular support. it also has its own newspapers, its own media. now, the state tv is controlled. but i just want to -- you know, we were talking about what people don't know about russia. there's a myth that there is no free speech at all in russia. there are attacks on journalists, brutality. but i would argue the print press in moscow on any given day has a broader spectrum of views than the print press in this city. print press. so, there's -- >> the newspaper, for example, because we think of putin as this tough guy and nobody can criticize him. in a recent newspaper, a recent issue, the paper accused putin

of being a robber of russia and accused medvedev, the president, of being a stooge of washington for signing the arms control agreement. that's a muscular opposition. >> you have tea partiers in russia, willie. they don't like the s.t.a.r.t. either. >> i think putin is playing a palin. he does the motorcycle, harley-davidson, no shirt. the domestic nationalism. >> wait a minute, palin went on harley-davidson shirtless? >> before we go, celebrating in this country reagan's 100 birthday this week, gorbachev's 80th, i know you'll be there. talk about the behind-the-scenes relationships that brought about the end of the cold war. >> to this day, when you see gorbachev, he still talks about reagan with nothing but affection, nothing but affection. and the reason is those two guys entered history because of each other.

they became partners. and what i like about those two guys, and here i -- i'll try not to create a disagreement. the greatness of reagan is he transcended himself when the opportunity came. when he saw or he thought he could end the arms race and the nuclear weapons with gorbachev, he put all that anti-soviet stuff behind him and he went boldly forward. and gorbachev did the same thing. >> i think the fact that he's a great partner in gorbachev who in my view was really the architect in the end of the cold war does do what he said, but i do not believe you can separate reagan domestically, he seeded the problems that the country is facing today. >> thank you. >> and you got a dig in and i don't have time to respond. next time. up next on the late night. ♪ sun in the sky

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the president stayed very focus on his agenda which was to wrap things up and get to the game. >> the muslim brotherhood a great concern to a lot of people. a big threat to the usa. >> once my bears lost, i don't pick sides. >> you under thstand that many americans think you're a big government liberal. >> green bay is probably faster. steelers have a little more experience. >> does it disturb you that so many people hate you?

>> i know football. >> they hate you. >> i know football. >> i'm going out on a limb here, i don't think bill o'reilly really likes the president. that's the impression i got. you decide for yourself. >> mr. president, thank you very much for doing this and i must thank you on behalf of the fox news channel. >> always a pleasure. >> nice to see you. >> thank you so much. >> and i hate you. now, who is going to win the game? come on, come on. >> bill, here's the thing. the folks who hate you don't know you. >> you don't care who wins. >> i want a great game. >> so you don't care. >> green bay is probably a little faster. >> muslim. >> enjoy the game. and alex rodriguez there and then they had cameron diaz, did you see that? and at first, what is this, she's feeding him? she's feeding him popcorn. feeding him popcorn, ladies and gentlemen. and later in the game, look at this, she's, what, she's feeding

him, like, a turkey, like a turkey leg. embarrassing. and then she wasn't done. then this happened. there's john madden. she's -- >> oh, no look at that. pretty good summary, actually. up next, what have we learned today? but if you're hurt and miss work does it pay cash like aflac does? nah. or let you spend it in any way you want like for gas and groceries? nah. or help with everyday bills like aflac does? nah nah nah. [ male announcer ] there's aflac and there's everything else. visit aflac.com for an agent or quote. aflac!

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hey, kids, it's time to talk about what we learned today. mika, what have you learned? >> i asked willie to do something very simple. >> what, the dough rita finger? >> that's right. >> we'll do it privately in your office. >> that's okay. >> moving on. >> what did you learn? >> other than a very weird dynamic going on between willie and mika. >> i don't want to -- >> i've got pictures from p.j. clark by the way. >> come on. >> man, well, i learned about the rename of the show, "good morning trenton." >> come, come on. >> looking good. >> and chris christie moment today, brought to you by -- >> did you learn anything? >> i learned a couple quick things, drew brees from austin, texas, he played for purdue, but he was from